Necromancer Of The Shadows

Leaving Ashley behind to collect the scraps on the battlefield, Anastasia swiftly made her way toward the Boundless Ocean. Her figure was cloaked in an obscure black energy that rendered her completely undetectable, concealing her presence from the demons and dragons who were fighting.

Although the Boundless Ocean was millions of kilometres away from the battlefield where demons and dragons clashed, Anastasia could reach it within mere minutes—and that was without using her full power.

However, instead of heading directly to the Boundless Ocean, she first diverted to a secluded area surrounded by high mountains and lush greenery, just a few hundred thousand kilometres far away from the Boundless Ocean. The vibrant wilderness stretched for miles, untouched by the destructive battle between the Demons and Dragons.

"I wonder if that thing is still here after thousands of years..." Anastasia whispered softly, her voice barely audible. She expanded her spiritual senses, covering the entire area surrounded by the towering mountains and dense vegetation.

Within seconds, she found what she was looking for and a faint glimmer appeared in her eyes.

Taking a single step forward, she instantly appeared before a large, round black rock. The rock, roughly four meters in diameter and two meters in height was covered in a thick layer of green moss and dust, suggesting that it had remained undisturbed for countless years.

Upon seeing that the rock was completely fine, Anastasia's lips curled into a small, satisfied smile. She pointed her finger at the rock and a surge of energy stirred within her body.

As a Rank Six Dragon, she possessed impeccable control over her physical form. Manipulating her blood, as well as altering her body size, was a trivial matter to her. With ease, she drew a single drop of blood from the tip of her finger and directed it toward the rock.

At first, the drop of blood merely slid down the rock's surface, without any visible reaction. But after a brief moment—about three seconds—the rock began to emit a faint, shimmering silver light.

The drop of blood was absorbed into the stone and the moss and dust covering its surface dissolved, revealing a smooth, gemstone-like black rock glowing with an ethereal silver hue.

Anastasia wasn't surprised by the transformation of the rock and calmly touched the surface of the rock. As soon as her hand made contact with the rock, the silver light enveloped her entire body and in the blink of an eye, she vanished, leaving behind the glowing stone.

Once she disappeared, the surroundings fell into an eerie silence, the peaceful mountains and vegetation basking in the afterglow of the glowing rock.

However, that peaceful silence didn't last long. Within seconds, the sound of wings flapping echoed throughout the area, accompanied by a chilling, oppressive aura that filled the atmosphere.

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The flapping of wings grew louder and louder until a blood-red light flashed around the black stone.

As the blood-red light flashed, tens of thousands of bats swarmed into the area, gathering and coalescing into the figure of a woman with silver hair. The woman with her long, sleeveless black gown stood tall with an air of menace. Her pale skin glistened under the light, while her blood-red eyes glowed with a fierce, insatiable hunger.

Stopping in front of the black stone, the woman's eyes glimmered with uncontrollable red light as though something inside the stone was irresistibly calling out to her.

"Following that strange woman was the right choice..." The female vampire murmured softly, her voice filled with both awe and greed as she licked her red lips as though she were a predator about to devour her prey.

The woman stepped forward, her hand reaching out toward the silver-glowing stone. But just as her fingers were about to make contact with the rock, her entire body froze.

The vampire's eyes widened in shock and for the first time, fear flickered within them.

She looked down and found without her noticing, at some point, black chains had materialized out of thin air, wrapping themselves around her. They bound her tightly, making it impossible for her to move.

Sensing the gravity of the situation, the female vampire no longer cared about hiding her power. She prepared to unleash her full strength, but before she could gather her energy, her world abruptly turned upside down. A look of utter confusion filled her red eyes as she tried to comprehend what had just happened.

Before she could process it, her vision shifted downward. The ground came rushing toward her, and just before she hit it, she saw her own headless body lying in a pool of blood.

Behind her headless corpse stood a shadowy figure that resembled her as if it were her own shadow. The shadowy figure was holding a scythe, and the sharp tip of the weapon gleamed with fresh blood, dripping onto the ground.

Before the vampire woman could grasp what had happened, the light in her eyes dimmed, her life extinguished in an instant as her severed head tumbled to the ground, rolling several meters before coming to a stop.

A silver light flickered and Anastasia appeared within a small, isolated space, about a hundred square kilometers wide.

"Did that vampire truly believe she sensed my presence because of her heightened abilities?" Anastasia muttered in an amused tone as she glanced around at the brightly lit surroundings.

She had noticed the vampire woman lurking in the shadows back when she was with Ashley, carefully watching the clash between the Dragons and Demons.

It didn't surprise her that a vampire was keeping an eye on the war; after all, she had been one of the architects behind the Bloodmoon Empire's involvement in the conflict between the Gehenna Empire and the Dragon Islands.

Ordinarily, she wouldn't have given the vampire a second thought, but realizing the Bloodmoon Empire was still too hesitant to act, she decided to give them a little push and deliberately allowed the vampire woman to sense her presence.

Being a progenitor dragon, Anastasia's blood possessed a unique allure to vampires, a powerful draw that was impossible to resist for a creature whose existence depended on consuming blood.

After letting the vampire detect her and the irresistible scent of her blood, she simply led her away, allowing the vampire to follow her, unaware of the trap she was walking into.

Now, with the female vampire dead, the Bloodmoon Empire would likely suspect the Demons had something to do with her disappearance.

Anastasia wasn't expecting much from the vampire's death. Her goal was simply to stoke the flames of war, encouraging the Bloodmoon Empire to act sooner and escalate the conflict before Baphomet and Eldrakar returned to Utopia.

The reason they involved the Bloodmoon Empire in the war was to increase the scale of the conflict and cause as much damage as possible to the Gehenna Empire, which was currently vulnerable due to the recent chain of events.

Eliminating the vampire woman would provoke the Bloodmoon Empire, pushing them to act more aggressively and sooner than they might have otherwise.

This incident with the vampire was insignificant to Anastasia, and she soon ceased dwelling on it. Instead, her gaze swept over the small space with a melancholic expression as if she was recalling something pleasant.

The independent space was small, but it brimmed with an almost overwhelming amount of world essence. In the heart of the small space stood a modest garden filled with striking blood-red flowers that seemed as if they were dripping with blood.

Anastasia walked into the garden and soon found herself at its centre. Gazing at the hundreds of blood-red flowers swaying in the breeze, she nodded in satisfaction.

"These flowers have completely absorbed the flesh and blood of those wretches," She murmured to herself, a strange light flickering in her eyes. "When I first met him, these flowers were worthless to him. But now that he wants to increase his power as quickly as possible, these flowers will prove invaluable."

She paused, a calculating smile tugging at her lips.

"When it comes to enhancing one's strength as a low-level Core Evolver, there is nothing better than the Dragon Blood Flower. With the potential of his core, if he uses all of these, his power will definitely skyrocket... And since these flowers are so beneficial to him, offering them as part of my dowry shouldn't be considered shameful. They are useless to me anyway. By giving them to him, I will be saving a fortune on the wedding costs."